Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner said he'd consider opening his wallet if it meant improving his pitching staff, considering how the starting rotation has struggled so far, according to a report from the the New York Post's Ken Davidoff.

“Always willing to look at options come July, come the trade deadline,” Steinbrenner said while leaving the quarterly owners’ meetings at Major League Baseball’s NYC office, according to the report. “And I think we’ve shown that. Some years we’ve done stuff like last year with (Alfonso) Soriano. Some years we haven’t. But we’re not going to ever lay down and die. We’re going to do what we need to do to stay in.”

Three of the five starters that started in the Yankees' rotation at the beginning of the year (CC Sabathia, Michael Pineda and Ivan Nova) are on the disabled list. Hiroki Kuroda has been up and down. Vidal Nuno and David Phelps, who have filled in for Nova and Pineda, respectively, haven't proved their longterm solutions. And, on top of it all, the Yankees will start a rookie making his major-league debut — Chase Whitley — against the Mets Thursday.

Only 25-year-old Masahiro Tanaka has established himself as reliable for the Yankees.